Custom Software Development Costs in 2025

When you start working on your project, it’s essential to understand how custom software development pricing is determined. After all, the exact same service can be provided at different costs depending on many factors. Want to use your budget efficiently? Then you’re at the right place.

In this article, we’ll explain how the custom software development price is based on multiple elements. You’ll learn all about the nuances and details to get the most from your budgets. Read on for more!

If you’re looking for the average cost of custom software development, you’ll have to specify the product you’re trying to build. Prices in the engineering industry range from $10,000 to $10+ M depending on your project’s complexity, involved expertise, applied technologies, and other factors. Let’s check them out.

Scope and complexity

The first thing to consider is what you want to build. This can include:

• Marketplaces
• Booking apps
• Business software
• Healthcare software, and hundreds of other types

Your initial idea already impacts the project’s scope, complexity, and involved technologies, which directly impact the costs. Without knowing the specifics, we can generalize your idea into five basic categories that involve different services:

• Basic-scale projects (up to $10K): Basic applications with minimal features, simple UI/UX, and no third-party integrations.
• Small projects ($10K–$50K): Applications with limited complexity, custom UI/UX, and a few integrations.
• Medium projects ($50K–$250K): More advanced solutions with multiple integrations, custom business logic, and scalability considerations.
• Large projects ($250K–$1M): Enterprise-level systems requiring high-end security, scalability, and complex business logic.
• Very large projects ($1M+): High-performance platforms with AI/ML integration, real-time processing, and global scalability.

The more features and integrations a project requires, the higher the cost due to increased development time and complexity. Note that large-scale platforms like Uber or Revolut cost tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to develop and are beyond the scope of this breakdown.

Team composition and expertise

Depending on your project’s expectations, you’ll need a certain team with specific expertise. This includes front-end and back-end developers, software architects, project managers, QA engineers, UI/UX designers, and other professionals. Based on their expertise, you’ll typically expect the following costs:

• Junior: $20–$25 per hour
• Middle: $30–$40 per hour
• Senior: $50–$80 per hour

The level of expertise must correlate with your project’s complexity. At the same time, there will be a difference between hiring in-house and outsourced staff.

Development location

The geographic location of development teams is one of the biggest factors that affects custom software development prices. While certain rates are the bare minimum in some countries, they may be considered quite high in others.

It's also important to note that your team’s location doesn’t reflect the level of expertise. A senior developer in Eastern Europe may cost the same as a middle developer in the United States. However, their skills and expertise will still be appropriate for their positions. What will differ is the cultural fit.

Technology stack and tools

The choice of technology, whether proprietary or open-source, significantly impacts development expenses. Advanced technologies such as AI and blockchain tend to increase costs as they require developers to constantly learn new models.

Project timeline and deadlines

Accelerated timelines require additional resources and expertise, leading to higher costs. Delays and scope changes also add unforeseen expenses. That’s why it’s necessary to consider both factors.

Maintenance and Support

Post-launch expenses such as bug fixes, updates, and scaling efforts are ongoing and must be factored into the overall budget. You might also want to add certain changes into core mechanics, which will also impact the costs.

Now that we’ve covered the cost of custom software development based on the key factors, let’s take a closer look at the costs associated with each development stage. Our approach is based on the typical SDLC used across all leading development companies.

Planning and requirements gathering

This phase involves understanding business objectives, gathering technical requirements, and creating a roadmap for the project. The key aspects that affect the pricing are:

• Complexity of business requirements
• Number of stakeholders involved
• Industry-specific regulations and compliance

Top-tier companies often involve business analysts, project managers, and software engineers at this stage to provide detailed evaluations.

Design costs

This phase covers the UI/UX design, wireframing, and prototype creation to ensure an intuitive and functional user experience. You might also want custom illustrations to support your product’s branding, which might require additional expertise for the job. The elements that affect design pricing are:

• Design complexity and number of screens
• Custom branding and animations
• Responsive design for multiple devices

Design is a long process that takes place wherever you implement new features, screens, and pages, and everything adds up to the total software development cost.

Development costs

This phase includes coding, database creation, API development, and integration of third-party services. We’ve indicated the average cost of software development based on our experience and the industry’s medium, as there are too many factors to consider. Some of them are:

• Choice of technology stack (e.g., Python, Java, React)
• Scalability requirements
• Integration with legacy systems or third-party services

You can get a detailed estimate for your project with all breakdowns by contacting our team.

Testing and quality assurance

This phase ensures that the software is reliable and secure and performs optimally in every scenario. Most projects combine both manual and automated quality assurance methods to cover all possible use cases to prevent any issues in the future.  Software development pricing at this stage is based on:

• Testing methods (manual vs automated)
• Regulatory compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA)
• Complexity of the software functionality

Below, you can find an approximate breakdown covering the most popular services in QA engineering.

Deployment costs

Deployment covers the transition of the software from development to production environments, ensuring a smooth launch and minimal downtime. This may also include publishing your software in marketplaces like Play Market or App Store, adding relevant information, and making it work in your organization. 

The costs involved are usually based on:

• Hosting preferences (on-premises vs cloud)
• Deployment automation needs
• Data security considerations

Now, let’s check the cost of developing software based on each deployment factor.

Post-launch maintenance

This stage includes ongoing support, updates, and improvements to the software after deployment. However, whether it’s included in your project depends only on your needs. Many clients often transfer maintenance to their in-house teams after development.

How much does it cost to develop software in your industry? We gathered several examples of their associated costs. This will help you better understand the required budgets to bring your idea to life.

Small-scale projects

Small-scale projects usually involve the most basic solutions with minimum integrations, basic technologies, and simple business logic. Let’s take a look at the most common solutions that may be considered here with a budget range from $100,000 to $250,000.

Medium-scale projects

Medium-scale projects may rely on significant development efforts, third-party integrations, and even artificial intelligence and machine learning. These solutions have a large estimated user base and require a high server load as well. Thus, they will typically cost from $150,000 to $500,000.

Large-scale projects

Large-scale projects can leverage multiple technologies, integrations, and even the creation of unique solutions that aren’t openly available on the market. These solutions are fully tailored to the needs of large enterprises and support all their processes. The budget range will be from $500,000 to $2,000,000+.

It’s necessary to note that healthcare applications will generally cost more due to the high regulatory requirements in the industry. The same applies to the fintech industry, where you’ll typically need engineers with experience in building high-security solutions or even blockchain.

New technologies are constantly being developed across all industries, requiring developers to enhance their expertise and adapt to the changing market. In the nearest decade, our experts estimate the following technologies to be the leading options for innovative development:

• IoT will see increased demand for edge computing to reduce cloud reliance and costs, along with increased integration costs with legacy systems.
• Blockchain will keep on having high initial costs for development due to complex smart contract creation and regulatory compliance.
• Web3 apps will maintain higher costs for (dApp) development due to complexity and the need for specialized developers.
• AI/VR apps require high-end UX/UI requirements, increasing design and development expenses, along with costly hardware for testing.
• AI/ML software has expensive data acquisition and processing requirements, high training costs, and ongoing maintenance costs.

While these technologies are going to be quite costly and complex for development, the return on investment is also higher than with other solutions. That's why we recommend grabbing the opportunity right now to maintain a strong position in the market in the future.

As you can see, the average costs to create custom software for your business are affected by dozens of factors: technologies, teams, scopes, and many others. Reach out to our experts at Implex to get a detailed estimate for your project. We'll break down everything you need in a clear, comprehensive quote. Let's team up!